How to Build an Italian Learning Habit

A regular learning routine helps you make time for Italian. Choose a pattern that fits your schedule and gives you opportunities to listen, read, write and speak.

These six steps can help you create a manageable Italian-learning routine. Building a habit takes adjustment, so start small and review what is working.

Here you go!

How to build a powerful language-learning habit into your daily life 

Learning a language involves much more than just memorization. Forming a learning habit is a key part of getting fluent in Italian and achieving your learning goals. Here is our six-step guide on how to create a healthy language-learning habit and stick to it. 

1. Set realistic goals with reasonable deadlines

Ask what you want to be able to do in Italian, then choose an observable task and a review date. Time to reach a goal depends on your starting level, practice and opportunities to use the language.

It could be to:

• prepare a one-minute introduction and practice answering two follow-up questions;
• learn ten useful travel phrases and use them in a role-play;
• read a short text at your level and summarize its main idea;
• listen to a short dialogue, identify the main message and review unfamiliar words;
• write a brief message and get feedback on it.

Setting clear, realistic language-learning goals and making progress on them will maximize your motivation. Enthusiasm, focus and motivation are essential to keep going.

Conversely, setting unrealistic goals with very tight deadlines puts you at risk of getting frustrated, feeling discouraged, disheartened and demotivated, and giving up when you experience difficulty in getting the results you expected.

2. Divide up your goals into smaller, approachable milestones 

Cut down your main goal into a series of very little steps to do every day. For example, start with just one short topic per day. Don’t take on too much at once. Setting mini goals helps you stay focused and motivated, and reduces the propensity to procrastinate.

3. Put learning Italian into your schedule

It’s important to have some structured studying time to focus on grammar, orthography and new vocabulary. Train yourself to make learning Italian part of your daily routine, and make an effort to carve out some time every single day for it. This time block doesn’t need to be enormous: plan for just 15-20 minutes of study at a time, then gradually add more. 

Decide when and where you are going to practice Italian, and pick a time of day that works for you, whether that’s on the bus during your morning commute, at your desk over lunch or in bed at the end of the day. Keep doing it until it becomes a habitual, integrated part of your daily schedule.

If you take long breaks between Italian study sessions, it will be hard to make information stick. Practice the language and review concepts every single day or at least at regular intervals.

4. Reward yourself and stay motivated

To stay on track, break your main goals into little doable steps, and then reward yourself for each little step completed. Celebrating your achievements and small triumphs along the way is EXTREMELY motivating. 

Recognizing progress can make practice more satisfying. Keep a record of what you can now understand or say, and use it to decide what to practice next. This is a practical suggestion, not a guarantee of improved wellbeing.

So, it’s important to consciously recognize the progress you have made, and not only focus on your mistakes.

5. Overcome procrastination

Make the first step easy: open one short exercise, listen to a brief dialogue or review a handful of words. You do not need the perfect study session to make a start.

As mentioned previously, carve out some dedicated time for learning and practicing Italian every day. Put that period on your calendar, stick to it and treat it as you would an appointment with your best friend. If you fail to do so, your daily tasks will overshadow your learning agenda.

6. Have fun with it

Add Italian movies, sitcoms, TV shows, multiplayer games, comics, graphic novels, music and YouTube videos to your language-learning regimen. It can definitely complement your formal learning of Italian. 

As already mentioned, learning a foreign language is so much more than just memorizing a list of words. Contextualizing the vocab you are learning is crucial, and the best way to do that is by cozying up with Italian culture. Watch target language TV and films, check out Italian vlogs on YouTube and make friends with native Italian speakers to enjoy the language and culture, as well as practice your skills, for fun. 

Examples of Italian learning habits

Here are some learning habits you could get into:

• Scan the headlines on an Italian newspaper over breakfast in the morning; 
• Practice verb conjugation in the shower;
• Put your headphones on and press play on an Italian podcast on your way to work; 
• Go over a new lesson over lunch;
• Watch an Italian vlog on YouTube instead of taking a smoke break during your work day;
• Go through some grammar exercises on your way home from work;
• Listen to Italian music while you work out at home or at the gym;
• Chat with your Italian pen pal on HelloTalk while waiting in line at the ATM;
• Listen to an audio book in Italian while cooking dinner;
• Review concepts while doing the dishes;
• Watch an Italian movie after dinner; 
• Put your pajamas on and read a few pages of an Italian book in bed.

Choose one or two manageable habits first. Repeat them on a schedule you can sustain, then add more if useful. If you miss a session, resume with the next small step rather than giving up.

Which Italian learning habits are you going to start doing? Let us know in the comments below.